The Joy Of Being A Dream Hopper
by sctwilightvampwolfgal
Summary: Amelia loved what she did though she'd never expected to find an honest mystery among a dream. She'd been a dream hopper for so long that she'd never have guessed that something a dreamer would say, would make her more than a little curious about another dreamer. *Nyo!America & brief references to Nyo!Lithuania.* *Inspired off of two prompts from the last day of AmeLiet Week 2018.*


She'd been raised in the long, nearly forgotten art of dream jumping, and Amelia well knew that every dream was different, every bit of control wasn't predetermined yet she'd never faced anything like this before.

Amelia stood in a small room, vacant of nearly everything but shadows. Cool drafts rose in somehow from closed windows, and she could tell just by the tilt of shadows that the room was supposed to be white when the light was on.

She found no light switch which didn't ultimately concern her, because she'd been in far weirder, far stranger, and far scarier places while dream hopping. Amelia is what most people would call a Sandman, a boogeyman in some weird forms of name calling, but she was the sort trained in altering dreams as best as she could.

Amelia didn't like being alone; in the dream worlds, you usually had people nearby, some friends, some foe, but you were rarely alone.

She climbed on to the small table in the dead center of the room that had just appeared and took a deep breath as she heard chatter in a hallway that she couldn't quite see. Higher ground was always the safer option especially if the dreamer happened to be violent at just feeling the intrusion.

"Hey!" A man stopped at the other end of the room, past a doorway that had just appeared moments ago, and with the faintest shimmer to his skin and clothes for a second, she realized that he was the dreamer. The woman beside him was almost completely transparent to Amelia's trained eyes, not a dream hopper, not the dreamer, as imaginary, almost real, as the walls around her, and the table that Amelia stood on. The new woman could disappear at any moment as the dreamer could possibly 'undream' her, forget that she was in the room at all.

"I'm Ami." The first rule of being a dream hopper was to never give out your real name; names held a sort of authority and command that little else did. A dream hopper never wanted to be tracked down, and so they kept their identity ambiguous. All dream hoppers started out with nearby dreamers anyway: usually there mentors first and then on to locals that were asleep. Amelia knew that she was advanced enough to go anywhere within reason of course, but she hated chancing fate.

"Toris." His image fizzled out for a second; he was telling the truth.

"Who's she?" Amelia wasn't sure that she wanted the nameless woman that looked so much like him to vanish from all dream-reality just yet.

"She's Daina, my twin sister." He shrugged, and Amelia smiled at the honesty in his voice; she already had a brief catalog of information stored in her head to write down once she returned to reality reality as she hadn't quite found the right words to describe the waking world.

"Okay, so..." Amelia shifted on the table, the dreamer meant no harm, "Do you want to think of something happy?" She'd rather be the Sandman than the boogeyman; she'd always preferred to leave dreams happier than when she'd entered. It made the most sense and kept her the safest after all.

"Are you sure that it's just like that?" The dreamer, Toris, questioned, but when his eyes closed, they were left in a field of flowers: his sister forgotten.

"Yeah, what do you want to talk about?" Amelia stepped towards him, leaving the small hill that she'd become perched on; he was thoughtful enough to not send her plummeting on to flat land when he'd changed their location.

"I don't know," He watched her cautiously, and she smiled at the caution that he'd finally shown her.

"May be, tell me about your sister or your family?" Amelia stretched out on the grass and flowers; she loved happy dreams, they always felt so nice beneath her. Dream hoppers never had a chance to dream the normal way ever again, too paranoid over other dream hoppers invading, and so her real dreams were with other people's.

"Well, Daina, she's really sweet." Toris shrugged as he shifted, still eyeing her cautiously.

"Go on." Amelia wasn't ashamed to be asking about anything personal; nothing was too personal for a dream hopper. She knew much worse people anyway.

"She's just always been there, you know? She likes to say the weirdest stuff sometimes, like she thinks that people can just enter your dreams. She sleeps with loud headphones on to avoid that." Toris rambled, and she knew that he only told her as much, because he thought that she was just a figment of his imagination. May be his sister was a future dream hopper to be. Amelia knew like all dream hoppers did that loud music or trying to avoid dreams did not keep others away. You just had to not sleep or invade someone else's dreams to keep her subconscious safe.

Dream hoppers never really told anyone, even close loved ones, of their existence.

"Oh, does she say that she sees anyone strange while she sleeps?" Amelia couldn't help her bursting curiosity. She'd never really known of any normal people curious about them. She'd grown up in a magical town from of dream hoppers and had finally asked about it and considered apprenticeship years ago.

"She doesn't tell me that." He shrugged, "She says that she doesn't dream."

"Oh?" Amelia would have to check into that later though she always hated leaving dreams early; she liked to see the endings and experience it all before hand. Amelia compared it to reading a novel; you wanted to read it all and not just stop somewhere in the middle.

"Yeah, my dreams are usually vivid though." Toris looked over at her, "I guess that's where we differ."

"Are they as vivid as this?" Amelia stepped closer and placed a hand on to his shoulder, knowing that he could feel how real she was. The only people in dreams that felt less than real were the ones imagined like his sister just a little while ago.

"N-No, not usually. I can't remember ever feeling anyone like that before." His green eyes were full of curiosity and amazement.

Amelia leaned closer to the man beside her, the dreamer, "I didn't think so." She bit her lip, unsure for once what would rush forth, spill from it, if she didn't stop herself here.

"Can we just stay and talk? You can stay close if you want." Toris looked nervous, and she felt for the poor boy as she leaned against his side.

"Okay, you start." Amelia prompted, and that was how she'd began her first meeting with Toris which should have been her only meeting with him.

* * *

She grumbled; she hadn't been able to get into Daina's dreams, may be she was a rogue dream hopper, herself, in need of training? Amelia had been sent back to Toris instead.

This time his dream was full of pretty, pink flowers that spelled out the question easily enough, 'Ami?'

She sat down; Amelia shouldn't sate his curiosity, but she figured if she could figure out where he and Daina lived, she could ask Daina about her lack of letting a dream hopper in.

Amelia stretched out and waited, and finally, her wait was awarded with Toris's presence.

"Ami?" He called out and rushed over, "What brings you here today? For some reason, even if I can imagine you, you don't feel as real."  
She couldn't help but feel a little charmed that he was trying so hard to bring a dream hopper back. Amelia knew better than to let that sway her however.

"I guess it depends on the day, Toris, or rather night." She held out a hand for him to take; the truth simply wasn't allowed from her end. She really hoped that his family wasn't hyper aware of dream hoppers, because if it ran in his blood, he may figure her out.

He gripped her hand tightly, "Alright, so you're real this time. Tell me about yourself, Ami."

"I'd rather learn about you." She shrugged and tried, really tried, to ignore his face heated up in a blush at her simple inquiry. He shouldn't have any less than platonic feelings for a dream hopper that he'd only seen twice now.

"Well, my sister and I wandered the forest today in Lithuania. There's a neat forest only a fifteen minute walk from our house, and I could have sworn that you would have liked it." She wondered if dreams usually made people feel or seem younger as they lost the masks that they clung to when they were awake. She'd rarely been in a regular person's dreams more than once; Toris may be her only exception to her once upon a time rule.

"Okay, did you dream of me?" It was probably a little harsh or odd to ask this of him, but she was genuinely curious if he constantly imagined her.

"N-No, but Daina fell asleep for a good fifteen minutes there." Toris told her so very easily once he got past the nervous lump in his throat.

"Okay, can you show me the woods, the forest, that you'd been exploring? I'm sure that I'd like it." Amelia was good at putting dreamers at ease; she had to be.

When the field changed to a vivid forest, she didn't mind or get surprised like some old, just learning to be a dream hopper might. She was only disappointed that touching anything in the forest felt fake and her fingers slipped through, "It's beautiful. You said you live in Lithuania?"

Amelia lived in the mountains, unnamed ones, or at least ones that most people didn't choose to cross; it was dangerous to walk near magic users even if you didn't believe in them. She only liked dream hopping, so she'd never gotten involved in keeping humans, regulars, out.

"Yeah, with my sister. We go to college now." He smiled, and she found that she liked knowing a rough estimate of his age.

"Okay, can I go home with you now." Amelia tested.

"You'll have to be quiet. Everyone's asleep." She could manage that.

His room certainly felt more real; his sister was curled up, headphones blasting, on the the floor, sound asleep. Amelia wondered for the longest time why she couldn't hop into her head. She tiptoed out of the bedroom to find that his parents were asleep soundly in their room and everything felt real like she'd imagined that it would. The more familiar you are with a place, the more real it became in your mind while you snoozed.

She peeked out the living room window though she couldn't quite read the numbers on the mailbox, "Hey, Toris, want to go outside?"

"S-Sure." He muttered, and she watched him put boots on, like it mattered in his sleep. She slipped out the door, holding it open for him, and taking his hand once he walked through. She didn't respond to his quiet and heartfelt, "Thank you."

Amelia walked to the mailbox, swaying their hands together, and smiling when the numbers came into view.

She paused to give him a kiss on the lips, trusting that it would leave a part of her behind, like some little tracker.

Amelia loved the sneakiness of her job even if some hoppers didn't care for it as much.

His sister would be in her training soon enough, and hopefully, Toris would be none the wiser.


End file.
